Archive for January, 2009

To celebrate my new found color choice freedom, I pulled out one of the loudest polishes in my collection, Misa Green with Envy. This is a bright (and I mean BRIGHT) lime green. It’s extremely different, I don’t own anything else quite like it. I didn’t have any application issues (it actually applied really well) but it seriously took like 5 hours to get this manicure done. Every time I finished, I would dent one finger – it happened 6 different times! I used 3 coats of color and 1 coat of Misa BACKbone as the base and 1 coat of Seche Vite as the top coat. If I’m ever feeling particularly adventurous I might try to do a half-moon mani using Green with Envy and OPI Don’t Know… Beets Me.

If you haven’t taken advantage of the exclusive Misa offer I posted about before, tomorrow (Friday the 30th) is the very last day to get a free polish and order polishes at a discount. I recommend calling them (1- 888-733-6472), instead of using email, if you decide to place a last minute order.

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Disclosure: I’m not sure – it’s possible that Green with Envy was sent to me for review by Misa.

I’m a Barielle fan girl, so you can imagine my excitement when I read that Barielle would be launching a line of colors designed by Celebrity manicurist, Elle. And what an awesome new line it is, Elle has whipped up some truly incredible shades. So far, I’ve *loved* what I’ve seen on ALU and Scrangie. And for us girls who need to wear work-appropriate colors, Elle’s spring collection looks extremely promising as well (swatches coming soon).

Date Night is my first venture into the Shades line and I am completely, totally in love. The color is very well pigmented, perfect in two coats. My one criticism is that the polish dries extremely fast, which can be bittersweet. If you take too long to apply you might get a little bit of brush drag but it’s workable. The color is SPOT ON – seriously, golf clap for Elle. The community has been clamoring for greens for a while, so it’s great that designers are finally starting to listen. This green is particularly beautiful. Dark, but not too dark, shimmery but not ‘cheap’ shimmery, perfect.

Girls have been spotting these polishes in CVS Drug Stores but you can also get them online at barielle.com.

Whoooooops. Apparently, Joy is from the warm set and Admire is from the cool set. My apologies, I mixed up the colors while I was swatching and neglected to double check the sets before posting. Thanks to Sminkan for pointing out the discrepancy. In any case, here is the second set of colors from the Romantique collection. Like before, these are all one coaters and I didn’t use a top coat. Enjoy!

(Please take note of my side comment in the Cool Set postconcerning the color accuracy of these swatches.)

China Glaze Admire is a pink metallic-y shimmer. The warm set is much more ‘feminine’ that the cool set so I figured this color belonged to the warm set.

China Glaze Delight is a metallic-y brown. Love this one. I have a soft spot for brown cremes, but every once in a while a shimmery one finds it’s way into favor as well.

China Glaze Emotion is like… metallic pink bubble gum. I’m not sure how I feel about this one. In a way, it’s unique. I think I have to wear it as a full manicure to make a final decision.

China Glaze Magical is a sort of pinky-taupe metallic. Scrangie hated it, I love it. This is one is borderline work appropriate, if you can get away with slightly out of the ordinary work polish.

China Glaze Passion is an antique gold. This one is my absolute favorite from this collection. It’s very wearable. In my opinion, it’s not too yellow. I’m always looking for the perfect gold for when I finally try the MAC Antiquitease mani I’ve been meaning to do – I think Passion is it.

For a few seasons now, China Glaze has released thematic, well balanced collections. Their main seasonal collections have consistently included something for every taste. So, golf clap to China Glaze – their design department knows what’s up.

Like seasonal collections in the past, Romantique consists of two sets, one cool, the other warm. Most of these colors apply perfectly in one coat. One Coat. People have been saying that for a while but I dismissed it thinking that one coat meant one massive-absurdly-thick coat but no, really, opaque bottle color coverage in one normal coat. The theme in this collection is a frosty metallic finish. When I first saw the promotional images I thought these were going to be chrome, they aren’t. Instead the finish is shimmery, nearly foil like. These colors, with their amazing pigmentation and viscosity, are going to be perfect for use with the Konad. All these swatches are 1 coat of color over 1 coat of base coat.

A note on the color accuracy of these images: These colors, due to the finish, are really difficult to capture accurately with my lighting set up. Most of the colors are deeper in real life. Additionally, the finish is not uniformly reflective like it appears to be in some of these photos. These colors have a lot of frosty sparkle. I really recommend looking at Scrangie’s swatcheswhich were taken in sunlight, in my opinion her images are a better depiction of these colors.

China Glaze Awaken is described as a platinum silver, I think it’s more like a silvery charcoal. This color is grunge-y. To me it has a steampunk feel to it. This swatch is one coat of color, no top coat.

China Glaze Cherish is a metallic-y moss green. I couldn’t capture the color correctly, it’s much more green toned in real life. This swatch is one coat, no top coat.

Adore is a metallic-y turquoise. This one is a standout for me. I’m going to go nuts using this color with Konad over black. 1 coat color, 1 coat base.

Devotion is a metallic-y lavender. This is my second favorite from this set. It may just be me but I feel like this shade of lavender was made to be worn with this finish. 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

Harmony is metallic-y purple. My third favorite, I feel like this color flattered my skin tone the most – I consider myself a warm tone even though I’ve never really understood all that jazz about cool tones and warm tones. 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

Joy is a metallic-y purple toned mauve. This is 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

Color Club may have just saved spring for me. Looks like they are releasing three collections this season. This one, the second collection I’ve seen, is called ‘Femme Fatale’. It contains 2 holographic polishes and one black glitter polish. Not to mention that I am a HUGE fan of white polishes. I am so excited for this collection I can hardly contain myself. I don’t have names or a release date yet but I’ll let you guys know more as soon as I find anything out.

If you follow my blog, you know how important today is to me. So, in good polish addict form, I had to choose a color that reflected my feelings about this historic day. Darren Garnick recent asked me if I was doing anything special with my nails for the inauguration. My initial reaction was, hell yes. I wanted to do something ridiculously flashy, like yellow, to represent my happiness and my hope for a brighter future. Instead, I decided to go something flashy, yet subtle. I figured OPI Designer Series Coronation (the name is fitting in a silly way) would be the perfect color.

Coronation was recently released with the new Designer Series colors (all of which you can see on Scrangie’s blog). I was pretty surprised to find that Coronation applies like a glitter top coat. Essentially, this polish is extremely dense multi-sized holographic glitter suspended in clear polish. With just one coat you get an effect similar to other dense glitter top coats. I put it over Zoya Trixie, it looked nothing short of amazing.

The holographic effect isn’t the uniform oil slick effect found in previous Designer Series colors. Instead, it’s like an amalgamation of multi-sized glitter each flashing brilliantly and individually. The shape of the glitter is irregular, each one like flecks or erratically cut chucks. I see as many as 3 different sized pieces of glitter. When applied with multiple coats (3 is what I did for the picture above) the very small pieces of glitter come together to build opacity. The image to the left was taken with flash and shows Coronation’s holographic glimmer. In the sunlight you get a slightly more uniform holographic reflection but it’s not high intensity, meaning the holo isn’t as colorized or rainbow-y as other holographic polishes.